Happy 9-11? WTF?

This morning on Facebook, I wrote "Happy 9-11!". I'm sure this caused many different reactions to those who saw it. A lot of us are scared to express our emotions on other's opinions of this day of remembrance. I was going to wait to write this, but the two responses I've gotten so far are interesting.

1. I was asked "Happy?" by someone that know me well and has become a good friend.
2. I was called a "f*cking idiot" by someone whom I met once and had only conversed with drunkenly.


We all have different memories and varied stories, some more heart wrenching than others about that fateful day just a decade ago. For some it's seems a lifetime ago, others still too fresh to recognize as the past. It took me a very long time to see images of what happened in different media outlets, because I was too busy in my dreams watching it replay over and over. And I'm one of the lucky ones.

Without getting into the hairy details, I'm lucky to be alive. Had I been a responsible adult in my mid-20s, I'd have never made it to my late 20's. The afternoon before the successful attack on the WTC in NYC, I was in a meeting at "Windows of the World". For those not familiar, it was a restaurant in the North Tower on the 107th floor of WTC. Specifically, I was at "The Greatest Bar on Earth" shamelessly promoting a new European energy drink as a mixer that would eventually take America by storm, Red Bull.

My meeting was running over and we scheduled to pick up where we left off at 9:00 am the next morning, Tuesday, September 11, 2001. After an art gallery opening the evening before which my friends and I turned into a near all-nighter, I drove home, showered and went to work. I got into my work van and started driving over the Brooklyn Bridge worried about stinking of the whiskey from the night before. Upon reaching Lower Manhattan, I felt the ground shake and decided to turn back to Brooklyn. Speeding into the Red Hook docks, I saw smoke billowing from the first tower to be attacked. The other drivers were standing at the edge of the dock speechless. I jumped out of my van and got the news that it was an airplane and most of them thought it was an accident. It felt like black sludge was running through my veins and I started shaking. I immediately called my mother who was in Bucks County, PA fast asleep. I spent the morning on the phone with her praying not to lose the connection knowing I wouldn't get it back.

Fear and abandon. There's no words to describe the feeling I had when I noticed a plane looping around the Statue of Liberty, turning a 90 degree angle and implanting itself into the side of the other tower. During those moments, the only word that would come out of my body and I repeated incessantly was "NO!". No breath could enter my body, no tear could leave. Although I should have been relieved to be alive and had just escaped death, all I felt was overwhelming fear and indescribable loss. Not a physical loss, but one that shook my heart to the core like never before.

I remember seeing the beautiful blue cloudless sky being eaten by smoke and soot, a memory that I will carry with me to the grave. This was soon followed by ash, paper, bits of clothes with flesh and blood attached to them raining from the sky. After wandering through Brooklyn looking for something, but not knowing what, I returned to my car. And on what started as a beautiful morning, I used my ice scraper to clean bits of people, ash and paper off my car. The smell was of death.

Looking back, It took me many years of self-destructive behavior, testing, hurting and ruining personal relationships, sabotaging everything that could become of permanence in my life, testing my will and betraying my conscience to push through the mental, emotional and spiritual walls I had built that day. Don't get me wrong, there are many other reasons that I constantly rebelled, yet that day put a seal on any glimmer of reasonable thinking I thought I had.

Fast forward ten years, 4 DUIs, jail time, therapists that said I was beyond help, dismissal of reason, destroying of opportunities, rehab, an awakening and much painful work to find myself again, I can honestly say this is the first 9/11 I woke up a happy man.

For many years on the anniversary of this day, I would stay in bed, put massive amounts of alcohol and other substances in my body and do hurtful things to myself and those who care for me. Today, I'm spending the day cleaning my new house with my sponsor and the girl I will marry one day. So, yes, to me I say "Happy 9-11!" and I look forward to waking up in the morning now instead of the daily - wake, vomit, sludge through work, drink myself stupid and repeat - routine of my past 10 years.

There are many who haven't moved forward or have been forced to relive the horrors of that day regularly, if not constantly. I can only pray and hope that you are able to find your way as I have been blessed to get on with my life's journey. If I could envelop those that were suffering and take it away from them, I would have done so long ago, yet I am only one man. So, if you read something, meet someone who has been through these events personally, or you don't agree with someone's opinion regarding this day and what they have to say, don't be quick to judge or insult. You more than likely have had a different experience than them. Give them a moment of your time to express where they're coming from and you may learn something or become enlightened to a different perspective.

Thunderstick out.